


where people like me are found by people like you

by aisu10, rywaen



Series: live to tell the tale [1]
Category: The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Fluff, Friendship, Gen, M/M, Rainbows, UGH BABIES, bbys, idk they're cute and young and adorable you'll love it, lt4, preslash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-26
Updated: 2012-06-26
Packaged: 2017-11-08 15:51:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,649
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/444855
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aisu10/pseuds/aisu10, https://archiveofourown.org/users/rywaen/pseuds/rywaen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which back-talking a teacher is the best decision Tony Stark ever could have made.</p>
            </blockquote>





	where people like me are found by people like you

**Author's Note:**

> This is the first in a series of who knows how many in a universe where Bruce Banner and Tony Stark meet when they're both still in school. It's set up in mostly roleplay format with 5harky as Tony and Aisu10 as Bruce.

Biology was one of the few classes that Bruce Banner enjoyed, though never showed it; he was kind of a pro at hiding his emotions. All his new classmates saw was a shy kid in the back corner of the classroom, curly hair untidy and glasses pressed to his nose. But beneath his withdrawn outward appearance, Bruce really was happy to be in a class about a subject he was interested in. He just wished that the other students knew something about what they are learning and would stop asking stupid questions.

As the only son of Howard Stark, Tony already had a reputation in the school before he even arrived. People expected a lot from him. They imagined he'd be a gentleman, just as Howard had always been. They knew he'd be intelligent, from the stories that had been told of him. They expected him to be the perfect student. Of course, they didn't expect to get this Tony Stark then, the loud, rambling, rude genius who sauntered easily twenty minutes late to his Biology class, a wide grin on his face as the teacher began to reprimand him and told him to take a seat.

Tony held up his hands in mock defeat, looking around the classroom as he was met with at least thirty glares from the other children. The only seat open was next to a little nerdy looking boy in the back of the classroom; the only one who was actually not glaring at him either. He strode over and sat next to him, giving him a wide grin, deciding to be friendly, as he was in a rather good mood. He had just finished creating his first successful AI, after all.

"Hey. Tony Stark." He extended a hand to him in greeting.

Bruce watched the teenage boy walk in, his face expressionless. Unlike everyone else, Bruce didn’t really care who this kid was or why he was late; he just kinda wanted to get on with the lesson. And then he realized that the only empty chair in the room was right next to him, and he was suddenly a lot more nervous. Now all eyes in the room would be on him. With two fingers he pressed his glasses tighter against the bridge of his nose before reaching the same hand out to meet Starks’.

“Bruce Banner,” he half-mumbled in reply. He looked up to meet the boy’s bright brown eyes for only a split second before staring down at the notebook lying on his desk.

Tony watched him turn away and look down to his notebook again, wondering what his deal was. This Banner kid looked like they typical shy nerd; mussed hair, glasses pushed far up his nose, skinny frame, straight out of a teen novel. He heard whispers behind him, kids snickering at him and he turned in his seat, watching as they pointed at the two of them. His eyes narrowed and he snapped his fingers in their direction, making their expressions turn sour.

"Hey, hey, yeah you."

"What, Stark?"

"Fuck off, jackasses."

Their jaws dropped, the other kids whispering immediately at hearing Tony curse so loudly in front of the teacher and everything. They were freshmen, sure, but you didn't curse in front of teachers, not ever. Except when Tony did.

"Mr. Stark, did you just curse in my class?" Their teacher, Mrs. Mae asked him warningly, hands on her hips and a stern expression on her face. He didn't turn around when she called him the first time, so she did it again. "Mr. Stark!"

"Yes, dear?" The other students gasped again.

"Did you curse in my class?"

"Uh, yeah, but only because these fuckwads won't stop staring and laughing at my friend, Mr. Banner. And, if you ask me, that is very rude and I was just kindly asking them if they could cease and desist before I had to go over there and make them."

Bruce just sat there as the conversation between Stark, the other students, and the teacher unfolded. He didn’t look up, but rather stared at his notebook so intently that it was as if all of the secrets of the universe were written on it. His eyes were wide under his lenses and his face flushed red when Stark called him his “friend” although Bruce had literally only said two words to him. He could just feel the other students’ gazes on him and the back of his neck prickled and he just wanted to disappear.

"Mr. Stark! I will not ask you again. Stop cursing in my classroom!"

"Well, get these assholes to stop staring at my friend and I will!"

"Alright, that is it! Mr. Stark, Mr. Banner, will you please step into the hallway?" Tony made a face and grabbed his things, throwing his bag back over his shoulder and turning on his heel when he stood up, flipping the other students off to get the last word in before he turned back to Bruce.

"You comin' or what?"

And now Bruce was a little angry, or maybe a lot angry, but it didn’t matter because he was shoving all of that deep down where no one would ever see it. He wasn’t even sure who he was mad at exactly, the jerks in the class or the teacher or maybe even Stark. But he told himself that Stark shouldn’t be the target of his anger; even though he’d brought the attention to Bruce, he’d also been trying to take the attention away when his big mouth apparently got the best of him. Plus, he was really the only one who had ever called Bruce a friend.

So as he stood and exited the room after Stark, both completely embarrassed and trying to keep his cool as best he could, Bruce decided to blame the teacher for his plight. Why was he being called out anyway? He hadn’t done anything!

The classroom door shut behind them with a loud bang, Tony being the one responsible for that, and he snickered as the teacher glared at him through the window in the door. He would probably never get tired of that.

He turned away from the door and leaned against the lockers across the hall, not planning on staying at first, but he figured he should at least apologize to Banner for getting him kicked out as well. This, unsurprisingly, was a big reason why Tony didn’t have friends in the first place. Even at only fourteen years old, he had become known for being the worst student in school, solely because of his attitude and completely off-the-wall tendencies.

Bruce jumped a little at the sound of the door being slammed, but quickly regained his composure and stood next to the door, across from Tony Stark. He was wringing his hands and trying hard not to look as nervous as he was.

“Hey, sorry about that, I didn’t mean to get you kicked out. Though, you know, that class is pretty boring anyways, since it’s mostly the teacher repeating herself five thousand times because no one knows what the hell mitosis is or where the fuck babies come from even though it’s like the easiest thing in the world to understand.”

“It’s alright,” Bruce sorta-mumbled again. He wasn’t used to talking to people one-on-one like this. He was a tiny bit surprised that Stark wasn’t scientifically inept like the rest of the students (he’d kinda started thinking he was the only smart one in the entire school) when he suddenly realized duh! – STARK. This kid must be the son of Howard Stark, the owner of the weapons company.

Anyone who knew anything about where babies come from would be able to guess that the son of a brilliant man would have inherited at least some of that intelligence. Bruce kept his revelation internalized, not wanting Stark to think he was stupid for not knowing who he is. And for some reason, Bruce really, really didn’t want Stark to think he was stupid.

Tony watched as Bruce tried to not show how nervous he was, picking up on it easily anyways with the way he was wringing his hands. Definitely an interesting guy, Banner. He seemed to be almost his complete opposite in personality - quiet, reserved, a man of little words - but he could tell that there was a definite genius in him. There was just something about him...

“You don’t talk much, do you?” He stared at him as he let his hand dip into his pocket, pulling out a pack of gum, opening a stick for himself before tossing it to Bruce. It was spearmint, his favorite.

Bruce caught the pack of gum, peering at it apprehensively before thinking ‘What the heck?’ and taking a piece. He liked spearmint – it was calming.

He shrugged as he chewed the stick of gum and held the pack out for Tony to retrieve. “I don’t have much in common with most people. So, no.”

Tony took the gum back, his fingers barely brushing against Bruce’s when he grabbed it, but it was enough to make his lips twitch in a smile. He was glad he had accepted the gum, his technique for testing people out working well on him. Tony liked to offer people things as a sort of small reward for talking to him in the first place. Had Bruce not taken the gum, he would have immediately had a whole different view of him.

Bruce felt Tony’s eyes drilling into him as he returned the gum, and he glanced up to see a smile on the other boy’s face. He suddenly felt like he had just passed a test of some sort.

“Well, I’m not exactly most people, am I?” Tony chewed with a grin, keeping his voice soft, figuring a shy guy like Banner would respond more easily if he stayed nonthreatening and polite. “Why don’t you try me?”

“I guess you’re not,” Bruce said carefully as he leaned back against the wall, crossing his arms over his chest. “Alright. I like physics, biology, chemistry. Science.”

“Same here. Mostly physics, chemistry, and engineering though, for me. Biology got boring for me when I read about it a few years ago. Read all about it and moved on.” Tony shrugged, still smiling though, knowing he had been right about this guy.

“I still find biology interesting,” Bruce replied, “I like the idea that everything can be broken down into a smaller form. Life is just so complex.”

“But engineering is great too,” he added, and he found himself smiling for the first time since meeting Stark as he said it.

Tony’s grin widened, if that was even possible, and he felt himself getting really excited, already wanting to talk this kid’s ear off, which was more possible than it may have seemed.

“I like that. That’s really true, actually. I like complex things, they help me think clearly. I might have to take another look into biology then, if you recommend it. Engineering will always be my priority though. I’ve got about, oh, maybe five projects I’m working on right now? I just finished one today, which was why I was late actually. It’s my first AI that’s aware enough to talk back and take orders. He’s so cool. You should meet him sometime, I’m sure he’d love you. His name’s JARVIS because he’s got a British accent and I think he sounds like a butler with the way he talks. He insists on calling me ‘sir’, which is kind of frustrating, but I’ll get used to it.”

Tony knew he was rambling and he knew he should’ve probably held back a bit longer before he actually talked his ear off, but he couldn’t help it. JARVIS was his best creation to date and he was sure that Bruce would appreciate him.

Bruce’s smile faded instantly, replaced by a look of shock.

“You built an AI?” he repeated incredulously, “All on your own?”

Bruce was not an engineer himself - he preferred the kind of science with microscopes and chemical reactions – but he knew how difficult it was to program something so complex that it could ‘talk back and take orders’, and he was very impressed.

“Hm? Oh, uh, yeah. I have a few little robots too, but they’re mostly like wind-up toys compared to JARVIS.” He grinned, blowing a bubble in his gum as he paused, tapping his fingers rhythmically against his thighs as he noticed Bruce’s shocked expression.

“Well, I got the parts and pieces from my dad’s lab, but that’s about it. I put him all together myself and I’m planning on wiring his consciousness into a few other devices so that I can talk to him whenever I need to. I’ve already got him in my alarm clock. He didn’t take too well to that, actually.” He chuckled at the thought, remembering how snarky he was already and Tony was glad he had programmed that in right away.

“That’s… awesome,” Bruce said, trying and failing to hide his complete awe. Bruce’s notebooks full of balanced equations seemed like simple math compared to something as complex as an AI. He started to feel very inadequate.

Tony can tell that he’s amazed by his ability, but he also started to get the sense that he was making it a bit uncomfortable for Bruce. He didn’t want him to feel lesser than him, not at all. He wasn’t trying to brag, but it was hard to control it when he got so excited, having never really had anyone to talk to about this before.

“Sorry, I don’t mean to sound like a jerk about it; I’m just not really used to having anyone actually understand what I’m talking about. People here are kinda assholes when you’re smarter than them, and me being the ‘Son of Howard Stark’,” he made sure to say it with as much contempt as he felt daily, “It just kinda makes things...worse.”

Bruce found himself blushing and ducked his head slightly to make it less obvious. He hadn’t meant to embarrass Stark, and he wondered if maybe he’d sounded a little too amazed about the AI.

“N-No, you’re not being a jerk at all, it’s alright,” he stammered apologetically, “I don’t think you’re a freak or anything.”

He realized after he’d said it that Stark might take that second comment the wrong way, but he really meant it to be reassuring – Bruce had been called a freak too many times to count and he just wanted to make sure he didn’t do the same to anyone else.

“Well...that’s uh, you know, nice. To hear that, it’s nice,” Tony smiled softly, one hand reaching up to run through his hair, messing it up slightly more than it already was. “I’m not ashamed of my intelligence at all, but it kinda sucks that even I can’t think of a way to make it easier to be so smart when everyone else struggles just to learn the basic stuff and not be hated for it.”

“I get that,” Bruce said softly, and there was a note of bitterness in his tone. He didn’t hate that he is smart; he hated that he had to hide it around everyone else or suffer.

“Well, I guess us so-called freaks are just gonna have to stick together then, huh?” He pushed himself off the wall, smiling as he held out his hand for Bruce to shake, much like he did in the classroom. “How about we try out being friends? Like, real friends, not me just saying so in front of the others, but really friends.”

Bruce’s throat felt dry as he reached for Tony’s hand once again.

“Friends,” he agreed, the corners of his mouth twitching up in a weak smile. He was suddenly overcome with emotion because this was probably the first time in his entire life that someone had ever asked him that, and he pressed his glasses to his face with the fingers of his free hand to hide his stinging eyes.

Tony thought he saw Bruce’s eyes get slightly wet with moisture, but he covered his face before he could be sure. He knew the feeling though, having never had many friends of his own. In the past, the only people who had ever really liked him were those who wanted to be the friend of a Stark, not necessarily a friend of Tony’s. He cleared his throat and went to speak again when the classroom door opened, interrupting him as their biology teacher shut the door behind her.

He grinned at her, not the same grin that he had given Bruce at all - it was wider, more teeth but no eyes - and she frowned at the both of them.

“Mr. Stark, Mr. Banner, I asked you to step out in the hall today because of your interruption of my class.”

“Yeah, we know. I hope you told them to stop being so rude, Miss because they were the real problem.”

“Mr. Stark, you were the one cursing in class.”

“Yeah, but it was their fault.” Their teacher threw her hands up in the air, exasperated by Tony’s persistence. She shook her head and pressed her fingers against her temples as if she already had a headache.

“Alright, I’ll excuse it this time, but if you curse in my class again, Mr. Stark, I’m going to have to call your father and let him know about this behavior. And Mr. Banner, I have to say, if I were you I’d be careful about who I pick to be friends with.”

Bruce kept silent throughout Tony’s exchange with their teacher, but he was no longer mad at her for sending him out here, because if she hadn’t he might have never spoken to Tony. Her ending statement, then, was very ironic.

He opened his mouth to say something in reply but was cut off by the bell ringing. The teacher just shook her head and turned back into the classroom, trying to tell her students to read the next chapter for homework before they all flooded out. Bruce stood back against the wall as his classmates filled the hallway, separating him and Tony.

Tony watched as Bruce quickly pressed against the wall, across from him, through the sea of students. He had been pushed back by someone, being slammed into one of the lockers before he had been able to grab Bruce or stay on his side of the hallway and all they could do now was wait for the rush to calm down and the students to disperse back into their next classes.

After it cleared a bit more, Tony adjusted himself and met Bruce in the middle of the hallway, smiling softly. “Sooo, do you have a class now or...?”

“I do,” Bruce sighed, “I have Gym.” He didn’t even try to hide the contempt in his voice when he said it. Locker rooms were basically the bane of his existence.

“Well, all the more reason to skip class with me then,” He grinned and raised an eyebrow at him, trying to entice him to come with. “I can show you JARVIS and a bunch of other stuff, if you want.”

“As tempting as that sounds, I... I’m not sure if it’s a good idea,” Bruce said. He really wanted to go see JARVIS, but he was worried about breaking the rules. He’d already gotten in trouble once today, and it wasn’t even his fault. Skipping class would be deliberate and dangerous.

Tony sighed, knowing now it was going to be harder to get Bruce to go along with him than he originally hoped. He ran a hand through his hair, stepping closer to Bruce to dodge being hit by a couple of students running down the hall.

“Well, how about this; you come with me and we spend the rest of the afternoon hanging out in my dorm, or wherever else we end up going, and I’ll make sure you don’t get in any trouble for it. Don’t ask me how, that’s not part of the deal. But I promise you - no, I give you my word that you won’t get detention or yelled at or any other terrible thing because you ditched class to hang out with the infamous Stark kid. How’s that?"

The prospect of avoiding Gym class with no consequences was certainly appealing. Bruce wondered for a moment how Tony was going to pull it off, but decided to give him the benefit of the doubt. Meeting the AI would certainly be a lot more educational than watching a bunch of sweaty teenagers throw a ball around. But his biggest motivation for accepting the offer was a fear of distancing himself from his first friend.

“Alright, alright, I’ll come with you.”

Tony grinned at his answer, definitely feeling like he had accomplished something great. Bruce was quickly becoming his favorite person, even after knowing him for only about an hour - maybe even less. But the time he had known him didn’t matter. He already felt a connection with this kid, wondering if what everyone always said about meeting that kind of person you feel like you’ve known all your life was actually possible.

“Great. Awesome, actually. So, let’s go before we get yelled at by a teacher for lingering in the hallway.” He grabbed Bruce’s wrist, dragging him towards the direction of his dorm room. He was in the single-room dorms this year, which made things a lot easier for Tony to do whatever he wanted in the late nights and early mornings when he usually worked on projects.

When Tony grabbed his hand Bruce was a little startled, but he did not have a chance to protest before he was whisked away toward the dorms. He ran after Tony, not allowing their connection to break.

It didn’t take too long to get there, now that the hallways had been cleared for the most part, the majority of students either going to class or to the library to study on their break. Tony lived in one of the more exclusive dorm rooms, having been automatically placed in the wing that was deemed for the ‘rich kids’. He didn’t socialize with the rest of the students there much, so he didn’t really care where he was put, only really caring that he had his own room and his own time to work on things.

“Here we are,” He stopped in front of room 108 with a smile he threw over his shoulder to Bruce, finally letting his wrist go and opening the door. His room was a bit of a mess with his tools and things everywhere, having just gotten finished with JARVIS earlier, but he didn’t think Bruce would mind. It was a bit bigger than the rooms in the other halls, but not by much. It wasn’t all that impressive, for a room, but it was good enough for him.

Bruce peered into the room with a small smile on his face. It was pretty much what he’d expected, for an engineer. Lots of tools, not the most organized. Bruce’s room was more orderly by comparison, but that was mostly because Bruce was always nervous about leaving his notes lying about for his roommate to touch or read. He tended to keep his work private.

Tony was about to step past the doorway when he stopped, holding a hand up to stop Bruce as well and he grinned. He cleared his throat quickly before speaking loudly, so that Bruce and the rest of the hall could hear him.

“JARVIS? I’m back.” He watched Bruce’s face for his reaction.

“Welcome back, sir,” His voice was slightly too soft, a bit tinny around the edges, but it was something. He had a lot of work to do on him still; a ton of updates, huge add-ons, thousands of hours that needed to be put into it, but when you got right down to it; he had made a successful AI.

Bruce stood in shock for a good long moment. He hadn’t exactly been doubting Tony when he’d told Bruce about his newly-built AI, but it didn’t really feel real until he’d heard the voice respond to Tony out of thin air. His face broke into a big grin, and there was a rarely-used note of enthusiasm in his voice when he said: “That’s amazing, Tony!”

Tony grinned at Bruce’s reaction and he stepped into the room, JARVIS set up to automatically turn on the lights when he walked through the door, and he let Bruce follow him in before shutting the door behind him.

“JARVIS, this is Bruce Banner. Say hi, Bruce.”

“Hi,” Bruce said, all nerves and excitement because he’d never really spoken to an AI before, let alone one made by a high school kid he’d just met. He contemplated how much planning and thinking and working must have gone into making JARVIS and his head spun. Tony must be absolutely brilliant to be able to pull this off so young. For probably the first time in his life Bruce was eager to speak, ask questions, interrogate Tony and understand not only how JARVIS worked, but how Tony worked.

“Voice recognition for Bruce Banner completed successfully, sirs.” JARVIS remarked as soon as Bruce said hello and Tony grinned.

“Good, now he’ll recognize you when you talk to him. That was one of the things I added this morning before switching him on for the first time.” He walked farther into his room and sat on the edge of his bed, glad to see Bruce so excited about it because he knew he would be, he had just known and it was great to see it firsthand.

Bruce entered the room and looked around at the band posters on the walls before he turned to Tony and asked, "What kinds of things can JARVIS already do? I saw he got the lights for us, and of course I know about the voice recognition function. And you told me about the alarm."

"Well, at the moment those are his basic functions, as well as being able to read things aloud for me and remember pretty much anything and everything in the world, but I'm planning on adding a hell of a lot more features." He picked absently at his comforter. "Right now he only responds if you say his name and then continue the conversation, so he's listening for his name and that's kind of his on switch."

Bruce thought Tony was smart to have programmed the name-response function into JARVIS, as it would stop him from butting into people's conversations uninvited.

"Where does his voice come from?" Bruce asked, looking around the room for speakers.

"I installed it in the ceiling lamp, actually. That's the main speaker so that it won't get damaged, but there are two others on the back corners of my room, there and there," He pointed to the baseboards in the far corners of his room, "For more of a surround-sound type of effect. I kept the volume perpetually low for now since I haven't put in the command chip for him to be able to turn the volume up and down on his own when I ask him to yet."

Bruce looked at the places where Tony pointed as he contemplated what Tony was saying.

"Yeah, volume control and a 'mute' option would be really useful."

His gaze fell to one of the band posters and he asked, "Have you thought of letting him play music through his speakers and using him to control the volume and change songs?"

Tony grinned and nodded, "Yeah, I was thinking about that. I think that'd be a great idea. That's actually next on my list to add on since I always need some sort of noise or music playing while I work."

He leaned back on his hands, still grinning at Bruce. "Any other ideas? I have a list going."

Bruce was happy that Tony had taken his suggestion, even if he had already thought of it. Feeling like he should impress Tony with more suggestions, he scanned the room again.

"You could use him to call people. Program in a list of contacts and then you'll never need to use a phone again. People could just talk to you over his speakers."

"Another brilliant suggestion. I like this, this is good, we're a great team already." He grinned, waiting for any more suggestions should he have them, but not pushing.

He was completely sincere when he said that they were going to be friends, and he was eternally grateful that Bruce had taken the chance to believe him. This was going to be awesome for both of them, working together as they already were.

Bruce was thrilled that they were working together. When he looked at Tony's grin, he felt great. He felt, for the first time, appreciated. He couldn't wait to show Tony his notes, to impress him and get his opinions.

"Can I see the him? Er, the computer he's in? If you're going to be adding all these capabilities to him, I have some ideas for cooling off the additional heat he'll generate..."

"Yeah, definitely." He stood from the bed and motioned for Bruce to follow him across the room to his main computer. He showed him a ton of things he had put on there himself and he was constantly and pleasantly surprised when he didn't have to explain too terribly much to Bruce who at least had a basic understanding and great ideas of his own.

They worked on JARVIS together for awhile, mostly just coming up with future plans for him and add-ons, not doing too much in the way of hands-on work, but it had been quite a few hours by the time either of them looked up to take a break and see what time it was.

Bruce didn't look at his watch until his stomach growled loudly and he realized that he had missed lunch. He was shocked to see that he had been in Tony's room for six whole hours. In that time, he had absorbed more knowledge and exercised his brain more than he ever had in years and years of schooling... and he'd never enjoyed himself more.

"Crap, Tony... We've been here forever," Bruce told him, "We missed school completely."

Tony looked up to check for himself and he laughed softly. He checked his clock on his table and his watch, just to make sure, and yep, Bruce was right they had been there all day. Six whole hours.

"Damn, that's pretty impressive. I usually look up at least after four or five hours." He stood from where he had been sitting the whole time, stretching as his back popped a little since most of the time, he had been slouching or crouching down to get tools. "Well, I say good work team! Dinner? Yeah, dinner sounds good. You wanna grab dinner, Bruce?"

Bruce knew he should get back to his dorm, ask his roommate what he missed and start his homework, but another growl from his stomach promptly stopped him from denying the invitation.

"Alright. Where to?" he asked as he stood, stretched, and retrieved his backpack from where he'd left it by the door.

"Well, considering I try to avoid the actual cafeteria here as much as physically possible, I say the first requirement is that it is a place off-campus." Tony grabbed his wallet from his desk, sliding it smoothly into his back pocket. "Second requirement is that it's anything that sounds good to you." He held up a hand to stop Bruce before he could speak.

"Don't worry, we'll go down to the square and we can even just spin around a point if you want. But seriously, anything. My treat."

Bruce regretted agreeing to this as soon as the words "My treat" left Tony's tongue.

"Oh... Gosh, Tony. You don't have to," he protested weakly, but he could tell that Tony wouldn’t take "no" for an answer. He sighed after a moment, resigning to secretly sneak some money of his own along.

"I know I don't have to, that's the point, I want to. If I had to, it'd be considerably less of a thing I wanted to do." Tony remarked with a grin. This proved to be true at both the best and the worst of times, landing him in some difficult situations with the school in the past.

"Right... I - uh, I haven't actually eaten off-campus before, so I'm not exactly sure what's around..." Bruce half-mumbled, lifting a hand to scratch the back of his head sheepishly. His meal plan only covered the cafeteria, and he had a limited amount of money to spend elsewhere, which he usually saved for books and school materials. "You should decide. We'll go someplace you like. I'm sure I'll like it, too," he added, smiling again, "We do have a lot in common already."

Tony grinned and walked to the door, opening it for him, locking it behind them. "Fine, we'll go to my favorite place. And you're gonna like it! It's really great, it's kinda one of those places that has like, a thousand different things you can choose from, like it doesn't have a main theme or whatever, it's pretty cool. C'mon, I'm starving just thinking about it."

They walked together down the hall, Tony brightening as he thought of another project he had been working on to tell Bruce about, making their way out to the courtyard and off campus, already having the time of their lives. And it was only their first day as friends, which meant it could just get even better from then on.


End file.
